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My essay was about the advantages and disadvantages of international travel between countries.
When it comes to the disadvantages, I wrote downside to avoid repeating disadvantage, but my teacher suggested to use drawback instead. She said downside was not appropriate.
Can you tell me the difference, and when to use both of them?
Downside is more modern/informal, and a bit slangy (some would still call it "business jargon").
Interestingly, people sometimes head up the section on, say, a business case assessment, with singular Downside - followed by perhaps several separate disadvantages. They usually head it up with plural Downsides though. But it would be very unusual to use Drawback or Disadvantage in the singular there.
Drawbacks is somewhat more informal than disadvantages, but they're both fine for almost all contexts.
